


In The Darkness

by ScoutLover



Category: Leverage
Genre: Character Study, Dark Past, Episode Related, Gen, Past Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-12
Updated: 2013-06-12
Packaged: 2017-12-14 17:57:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/839728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScoutLover/pseuds/ScoutLover
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eliot’s locked in another dungeon, but this one is … different</p>
            </blockquote>





	In The Darkness

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](http://hc-bingo.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://hc-bingo.livejournal.com/)**hc_bingo** ; takes place during "The Experimental Job"

He clutched the thin blanket more tightly about him, shivering violently and trying, without much success, to control the chattering of his teeth. The air blowing in through the vents was getting colder, the temperature in the cell dropping rapidly, and the concrete wall at his back was steadily leaching all the warmth from his body. His feet and hands already felt like blocks of ice. All he needed to complete his misery was the musical barrage, and, between the tension of waiting for that and his violent shivering, every muscle in his body ached.

He had to hand it to Zilgram and his band of sadists. The fuckers knew what they were doing.

He forced himself to close his eyes and tried to will himself to sleep. Yeah, that wasn’t happening. He was too cold and too hungry, the meager slop these assholes called “food” just enough – maybe – to sustain a body, but not nearly enough to equip it to deal with the extreme stress of Zilgram’s “experiment.”

Cold, hunger, exhaustion, the constant strain of trying to anticipate what might be coming next … it was all depressingly familiar. He’d been in this cell, or ones just like it, more times than he cared to remember. The only thing missing was the Russian roulette favored by the Butcher and his men, or the water and electric wiring raised to an art form by the North Koreans.

He shivered again, and not entirely because of the cold. Memories were beginning to seep through the tight control he kept on them, coaxed forth by the same walls stealing the warmth from his body. He’d known walls like these before, was intimately familiar with the things that went on within them, had known – and suffered at the hands of – a dozen Zilgrams in his life. He could hear them whispering to him now in the darkness, could almost see their shadows in the corners as they prepared their “tools.”

Though, right now, the heated iron rods so loved by the bastards in Myanmar might actually be a relief. At least until his skin started peeling off–

He flinched violently and curled more tightly into himself, reflexively seeking to protect the more vulnerable parts of his body. But there was no real protection, he knew. They’d gladly inflict damage on any part of him they could reach–

_No._

He clenched his teeth and forced back the memories, pushed down the fear. There was no _they_ this time. He _wasn’t_ in a dungeon in Myanmar, or in any other of the black holes he’d known so well. The whispers and shadows in the darkness weren’t real.

And he’d walked into this cell of his own free will.

He drew a deep breath, held it, and released it slowly, trying to ease the tension knotting his muscles. Trying to hold onto that thought. He’d _chosen_ to do this. They’d needed to know what Zilgram was doing, what his victims were suffering, and Hardison cozying up to the bastard and trying to join his little “club” hadn’t yet yielded any usable information. This had been the best way, the _only_ way, to find out what was really going on inside these walls. To find out why David Schaevel had died.

And, hell, it wasn’t like being locked in a cell was anything _new_ to him. He’d scratched his name in and left his blood and a few layers of skin on some of the dankest walls in the world. At least Zilgram’s little dungeon had the virtue of being relatively _clean_. After this job was over, he wouldn’t be recuperating in a hospital, like he had when he’d managed to drag his sick and sorry ass out of that hell-hole in La Paz.

Rat bites were a _bitch_.

He shuddered at that thought, straining instinctively to listen for the shrill _squeaks_ and the scratchings of tiny clawed feet against concrete. _They were very distinctive sounds._ The blanket twitched against his arm, rough fabric crawling against his skin, and he jumped, flinging out his arm to dislodge the intruder. But no claws scratched him, no furry body went flying. He shuddered and settled again, exhaling unsteadily, the fingers of his other hand creeping to his forearm to rub at a ghostly bite.

_Not Bolivia_ , he reminded himself, forcing his hand away and clenching it into a fist. _No rats._

And he wasn’t alone.

_“Eliot, you still with us?”_

Nate’s voice, quietly anxious, sounded in his ear, sending ghostly rats and dark memories scuttling back into the corners. A faint warmth kindled in him, though the temperature in the cell continued to plummet.

“I’m h– here,” he stuttered, trying to control the chattering of his teeth and failing utterly.

_“You sound terrible.”_ Sophie now, her voice soft and sweet and filled with the same worry he knew would shining in her dark eyes. She hadn’t been happy about this plan at all, and had made her displeasure plain to both him and Nate in scathing tones. Now, though, he heard only gentleness and concern in place of her earlier anger. _“You don’t have to do this.”_

Except that he did. Rachel Schaevel needed answers, and David Schaevel deserved justice. And if it took a little suffering on his part to _get_ that justice … well, hell, it was for a better cause than a fucking sapphire monkey, right?

“I’ll be all right,” he rasped. A wry grin found its way to his lips past his chattering teeth. “Compared to some other places I’ve been, this ain’t nothin’.”

And it wasn’t, not really. Because this time he had a reason, a _good_ reason, and people, a family, waiting for him on the outside.

Suddenly Zilgram’s little dungeon wasn’t quite so dark after all.

_The End_   



End file.
